


Unbreakable

by EternalAgape



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, I really just wanted to see someone tie for the GPF, M/M, Yuuri and Viktor are Just That Extra, actual figure skating loopholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23671876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalAgape/pseuds/EternalAgape
Summary: Yuuri and Viktor spend a little too much time away from the rink during the off season.  Will they both be able to make it into the Grand Prix Final despite some less-than-stellar qualifiers?Or: There are seven tiebreakers so that there can never be seven participants in the Grand Prix Final, and Yuuri and Viktor somehow manage to avoid every single one of them.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	Unbreakable

**Author's Note:**

> These are the ACTUAL tiebreakers from the GPF that they're somehow slipping right past. This was mostly just written for Reasons - enjoy!
> 
> Credit/inspiration for the pretty crier line: Adam Rippon said something similar after his O by Coldplay dance on Dancing with the Stars.

They really should have started practicing earlier.

Yuuri had unluckily drawn an early Grand Prix assignment – he was due to skate at the first and fourth events, which somehow snuck up on them before either of them was ready. Viktor had been a little bit luckier with timing, having drawn placements at the second and third events, but he had the difficulty of needing to skate two weekends in a row. Either way, they hadn’t been ready.

It wasn’t that they were slacking off or anything – okay, fine, so maybe they had been (just a little bit). They had been on an extended honeymoon on a very remote island with their darling Makkachin. Who would want to leave _that_ to go back to Russia to train on a cold ice rink, day in and day out?

Yakov had finally convinced them to return to training in August. (And if it required Yurio screaming at them on the phone how he was ‘ _so_ going to win the Grand Prix Final. It doesn’t matter if you come back or not!’ then so be it.)

Late August was _not_ the optimal time to start on-ice training again for early October competitions. They really should have started earlier, but again: warm weather, gorgeous waves, and soft white sandy beaches – it’s not like you could blame them. Luckily, they had been keeping up with general conditioning while away on the island, so most of their problems related to _actually_ _skating_ and _putting together programs in late August_ (Yakov made sure to tell them at least twice an hour that they were personally responsible for his balding head).

Yuuri scraped through his first event at Skate America with a third-place finish, scoring a low-for-him but still respectable 247.51 points. It wasn’t the gold he had hoped for, but the training hadn’t been there for him to deserve a gold yet. Still, it was a medal; he could work with that.

They were on a plane to Canada immediately following the competition for Viktor’s first event. Viktor wasn’t too thrilled to match Yuuri’s bronze medal with one of his own (his score of 267.28 would have had Yuuri cheering if it were his own, but it was Viktor’s lowest score in the past six senior seasons).

Their globetrotting had them back in Russia the following week. Luckily, the Rostelecom cup was taking place in Saint Petersburg, so Yuuri could spend a little time at home and practice at their usual rink. Meanwhile, Viktor found himself winning the silver behind Yurio. It may have been an improvement in placement compared to the prior week, but with all the flying came exhaustion: Viktor set a new personal low since his first World Championship win of 252.02 points.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I did that!” Viktor groaned as he watched the scores come up. He shook his head in frustration.

“You were tired, Viktor. You’re only human,” Yuuri reminded him as he wrapped an arm around his husband's shoulders. “But hey, look at the bright side! Now we’ve both gotten the same free skate score this season!”

Viktor checked the scores once more, noting that his 154.98 was exactly the same as Yuuri’s two weeks ago, then cracked a smile and chuckled. “You’re right. Huh. That’s pretty funny! We definitely _are_ soulmates!”

In his press conference following the event, all he had to say when asked about his feelings on the score was, “I’m just lucky I’m a pretty crier.” Viktor’s placements gave him a mediocre chance of making the Final – with only three events completed, it all depended on how the other competitors placed in their own events.

The next week, they took one final adventure to Tokyo for Yuuri’s second event. Chris took the gold, but Yuuri was content with his silver, having made small improvements to his program while he was in Russia. He earned a score of 271.79, and he took joy for one moment in teasing Viktor that _he_ was the better skater in their relationship for once (which Viktor made sure to tell him was how things usually were, anyway, causing Yuuri to blush).

With 24 points each from their event placements, they were left holding their breath as they waited for the last two events to play out. When Phichit won the following week in China and Chris took the bronze, they both secured themselves places in the Final. With Georgi already qualified, there were three spots left.

Yuuri and Viktor had resigned themselves to not making the Grand Prix Final going into the last qualifying event. There were so many good skaters ready to compete, and between Yurio, JJ, and Otabek, the final placements were certain to go to them.

But as they say, ice is slippery.

Michele had been another medal favorite, and he had secured the bronze medal. JJ, on the other hand, had been poised to battle Yurio for the gold. Instead, he hadn’t even made the podium, coming in fifth place. It gave him a total of 22 placement points, lower than both Viktor and Yuuri’s 24 points.

“So…who qualifies then? We’ve got the same placements,” Yuuri asked, feeling his heart sink just a little. There was only one spot left, and they couldn’t _both_ have qualified.

Viktor grimaced at the idea, having purposely not checked who ranked higher in the official ISU chart under the assumption that it wouldn’t matter and neither would qualify. “Let me see. I had 267.28 and 252.02, and you had 247.51 and 271.79…” Viktor tapped the numbers into the calculator on his phone, and then he went silent. He stared at the screen for a moment, adding both sets of numbers together again, only to find that the result hadn’t changed. “But…but that can’t be right!”

“What is it?”

“We…both have the same total combined scores?” Viktor told him, his voice pitched oddly high.

“What?!” Yuuri nearly shrieked. “Well…what about the other tiebreakers? There’s other tiebreakers. Can’t you go to the official standings to check there?” Viktor nodded, holding his breath as he waited for the website to load. Unfortunately, since the last Grand Prix event had just finished, it hadn’t been updated yet with the final qualifiers – and even if it had, the site wasn’t loading. “So what do we do?” Yuuri asked. His whole body was visibly tense, mirroring Viktor’s.

“We could try to figure it out ourselves, or we could just wait for the update in the morning,” Viktor suggested. “I don’t really want to wait, but I also didn’t want either of us having false hope if we miscalculated a tiebreaker.”

Yuuri reluctantly nodded. “You’re probably right,” he agreed with a sigh. “I guess we’ll just have to-”

He was interrupted by the familiar sound of Viktor’s _Yuri on Ice_ ringtone (which Yuuri continued futilely to get Viktor to change). Viktor’s screen lit up in his hand, displaying Yakov’s face. “Huh,” Viktor mumbled, accepting the call and quickly putting it on speakerphone. “Yakov! Yurio did brilliantly!” Viktor said, but his words lacked some of their usual enthusiasm.

“Of course he did; he’s _my_ student,” Yakov’s gruff voice said, “but that’s not why I’m calling. You boys are…something else. _Tying_ , really?”

Yuuri sighed. “We were just talking about that, Coach. Turns out we have the same total scores as well as our qualifying points – we’ll have to wait until the standings are updated in the morning,” Yuuri explained.

Yakov made them both jump with a harsh bark of laughter. “I know all of this already – an ISU official just called me because you two have created _quite_ the issue for them.”

Viktor glanced up, meeting Yuuri’s confused eyes. “What do you mean?” Viktor asked his coach.

“You both have – _somehow_ – managed to tie all the way down to the seventh tiebreaker. There’s seven tiebreakers for a reason, and it’s so that ties can be _broken_ , not so that you two lovebirds can both qualify for the Final!” Yakov exclaimed.

Yuuri blinked owlishly, the words not processing in his mind. “Wait, _what_? Can you…repeat that, please?”

“You both qualified for the Final. You have the same scores, all the way down to the same total from your short program scores. And the seventh tiebreaker? That’s their silly little ‘highest participants’ factor since normally _someone_ withdraws from the competition, but both of you had two events with twelve competitors in each. You both somehow, _someway_ , managed to qualify for the Final,” Yakov responded, sounding exasperated and _very much done_ with his students. And then, as if there were any lingering doubt, he said, “ _Ugh_! Why do you both insist on doing things like this to an old man? Haven’t you taken enough of my hair already?”

“You know you love us,” Viktor sang, but it was half-hearted at best. He was obviously distracted, eyes still wide as he glanced between the phone and his husband’s face. “Yakov?” he asked quietly. There was silence on the other end of the line. “We…we both qualified? Really?” he asked uncertainly.

“Unfortunately,” Yakov answered, “I’ll have to handle _all four_ of you boys at the Finals.” Then, more to himself, he grumbled, “Should schedule myself a week at a spa right after.” While Yuuri and Viktor remained speechless, Yakov barked a final, “If you thought you knew the meaning of intense training, just you wait until we get back to Russia!” before the line went silent.

Even if Yakov hadn’t made his threat, Yuuri made sure they were less stupid leading up to the Final. ‘Less stupid’ included daily run-throughs of their programs, drilling elements until Yuuri was sure he could do them in his sleep. When Viktor tried to take a full hour for lunch, Yuuri insisted that Viktor run his choreography in the dance studio again (Yuuri _might_ have convinced him it was because he liked watching Viktor’s butt in this particular program – and while that was true, Yuuri was more concerned that Viktor was slacking off).

When the Final came just a week later, Yuuri felt prepared – or determined, at the very least. Viktor was his usual self, grinning for the cameras and laughing off questions about his “subpar performances in the qualifiers.” (Yuuri was ready to throw hands with that reporter – it was a good thing Yakov pulled them away when he did.)

At the end of the short program, Yuuri was leading by a two-point margin over Yuri, and Viktor was trailing less than a point behind him in third. Yuri was disgruntled, to say the least, and he swore that he’d be on top of the podium the following day (“unlike these two slacking honeymooners, and you can quote me on that!” he’d grumbled at the press conference).

But when the next day arrived, it wasn’t Yuri on top of the podium at all; it was Viktor, gold in hand and a new world record free skate under his belt. Yuri was further displeased when he skated last and watched his season’s best score slide him into third place.

Yuri made sure that the “slacking, undeserving, _ew-gross-stop-kissing-on-the-podium_ ” honeymooners knew exactly what he thought all the way through the Victory Ceremony, even as he obediently smiled for the camera and took an aggressively fast victory lap around the ice. And really, Yuri was correct: the honeymooners _were_ crazy weirdos for managing to pull off their qualifications for the Final, let alone Grand Prix Final medals.

(Silently, Yuri was composing an angry letter to the ISU for not including a coin toss as an eighth tiebreaker, but then again, “ _fucking Viktuuri_ would find a way to screw that up, too!”)

**Author's Note:**

> Head over to my Tumblr (also EternalAgape) if you want to flail over figure skating with me or you'd like to see all my Very Extra math calculations for this fic!


End file.
